The primary goal of most Information Technology (IT) systems is to meet required performance and service availability levels for managed applications at the lowest possible cost and risk, while maintaining the highest customer satisfaction. In trying to achieve this goal, the management processes of traditional systems have over-provisioned their data center, particularly when the Internet network has workload levels that vary from relatively predictable to unpredictable (e.g., spiky). Such an over-provisioning includes the dedication of sufficient computing capacity to support each application during its highest potential user demand.
Until now, the reality of over-provisioning has resulted in high costs accompanied with unpredictable service levels, while today's business environment is fast paced and demanding. To be successful and competitive, IT systems must meet business demands by delivering what is needed, where it is needed, and when it is needed. As such, in a dynamic and fluctuating marketplace, new on-demand processes and technologies are required. In today's economy, companies, and in a general way, IT organizations, cannot afford to maintain a server capacity for just-in-case situations, but need optimized and flexible infrastructures.
Different products already exist that constantly monitor service levels, anticipate resource requirements for peak workloads, and then automatically implement the needed services. For example, IBM's Tivoli Intelligent ThinkDynamic Orchestrator can be used to create, customize, and store workflow, personalized with specific policies and procedures, to automate processes in testing and data centers. The execution of these processes can be gradually implemented in a manual, semi-automatic, and finally automatic mode. This allows a company to progress at its own evolutionary pace to become a dynamic and automated on-demand business. However, these products are currently centered on resources they own (resources that have been assigned) and more importantly do not include definitions (workflow) for mail service provisioning.
In a data center, computing resources are finite and the business importance of each application varies. For this reason, such products as IBM's Tivoli Intelligent ThinkDynamic Orchestrator only help optimize resource allocation based on the relative importance of each application. For example, a lower priority application such as mail may be temporarily shut down while waiting for a higher priority application to be run according to its agreed service levels, until the load falls below a required threshold.